Abstract
Byliny Svyatogor the bogatyr are important part of the Russian folk epics tradition. The songs describe encounter of the young hero Il'ya Muromets with the old, dying giant Svyatogor who becomes his mentor.
The young hero takes the Svyatogor's power and position by accepting his life power (sila) and thus becomes the most important hero in the Russian epic songs. The author of the book introduces reader to the study of Russian bylinaic epics, offers an accessible interpretation of the fascinating mythological story and tries to find answer to the question why the poeple in the Russian North wanted to narrate it.
The thorough analysis of the variants of the bylina about Svyatogor and of their Indo-European parallels is supplemented by the appendix of commented and annotated texts of thirty seven variants of the song in the Russian original and its Czech translation.